Consumers as researchers – innovative experiences in UK National Health Service Research

Consumer involvement is an established priority in UK health‐ and social‐care service development and research. To date, little has been published describing the process of consumer involvement and assessing ‘consumers’ contributions to research. This paper provides a practical account of the effective incorporation of consumers into a research team, and outlines the extent to which they can enhance the research cycle; from project development and conduct, through data analysis and interpretation, to dissemination. Salient points are illustrated using the example of their collaboration in a research project. Of particular note were consumers' contributions to the development of an ethically enhanced, more robust project design, and enriched data interpretation, which may not have resulted had consumers not been an integral part of the research team.     

Requirements for Skill,Training and Retraining in the Mexican Food and Drink Industry

The Mexican food and drink industry has been producing for a more standardized consumer market. The influence of North American and European habits on Mexican traditional habits is very strong, and this population is rapidly coming to be part of the global market. The traditional Mexican foods and drinks are being processed by Mexican and American companies, including new formulas of low calories of healthy diet At the same time, the changes in the food and drink industry requires training in the management of the new biotechnologies and the aspects of business administration and vocational-technical education, in order to increase their competition with its processed products in the internal and also the international markets, through efficiency and quality.     

Married couples’ involvement with family vacations

Abstract

The involvement construct has received a great deal of attention in recent years. However, the majority of research on this topic has focused on the individual and has ignored spouses’ shared leisure involvement. In addition, little work has been done on involvement in the product‐class context of family vacations. This study examined the underlying dimensions of married couples’ involvement with family vacations and how these dimensions relate to selected personal variables. Factor analysis revealed two underlying dimensions. Stepwise multiple regression revealed that pleasure‐importance was positively related to gender role ideology and education and negatively related to presence of children in the home. A positive relation existed between the second dimension, sign value, and age. The study provides insight into both the nature of the involvement construct and how it might be used in future research.     

基于社区参与的海口市旅游业循环经济发展

旅游业在海口市国民经济中具有重要贡献,循环经济对于海口市这样一个既需要促进经济高速增长而资源又相对稀缺的海岛型城市的发展具有重要的指导意义。海口市旅游业循环经济建设不能只是市场和国家的结合,必须是包括社区在内的三个组织的结合。     

The Logical Framework Approach–Millennium

The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) has proved to be a valuable tool for project approval, design, and evaluation. However, a few pitfalls make it hard to use within today's project management framework and to integrate with other project management tools. This article proposes an updated version of the LFA to improve its compatibility with today's corporate culture, project management framework, and tools. We propose to call the updated tool the Logical Framework Approach–Millennium (LFA‐M). The LFA‐M is a seven‐step approach leading to the development of the Logframe‐Millennium (LF‐M), a five‐column and four‐line matrix describing major project commitments and providing an overall understanding of the project. It was successfully implemented at the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The LFA‐M fits well within today's project management framework and corporate culture and leads easily to other project management tools.     

Mind the Gap: A Journey to Sustainable Supply Chains

Many companies still view Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as solely philanthropy rather than addressing their material issues. A few companies that have began to see the strategic advantages of being socially responsible and addressing their social, environmental and economic challenges. Developing an effective strategy can reward companies with reputation enhancement, license to operate, avoiding litigation, recruitment and retention of employees and developing process, product and strategic innovations. One company who has realized the value of investing and integrating CSR into the business model is the apparel retailer Gap Inc. This article will examine the evolution of Gap Inc. and its work developing an effective labor standards assurance program and stakeholder engagement strategy transformed historically adversarial relationships with key stakeholders into collaborative multi-stakeholder partnerships. Particular attention is put towards Gap Inc.’s learnings in the process and how these new insights innovated the company’s CSR strategy over time. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Spousal Wealth and Fathers’ Involvement in Childcare in Uganda

ABSTRACT

The redistribution of household work is considered essential for effectively empowering women. This study examines the extent to which fathers’ evaluation of their wealth in relation to their wives’ influences fathers’ willingness to participate in childcare, a domain traditionally gender ascribed to wives. Data were gathered from a mothers’ survey and a fathers’ survey, each with a sample of 200, conducted in a rural and an urban district in Uganda in 2008. The study compares mean scores for perception and practice indices across three wealth categories: “wife is wealthier than husband,” “husband is wealthier than wife,” and “shared or equal wealth.” Data show that fathers are more likely to engage in childcare when husbands and wives share or have equal wealth than when there are wealth differences between spouses. The results suggest that policy should focus on raising women's economic endowment as well as public education that encourages progressive perceptions of gender roles.     

品牌信任、自我概念一致性与品牌依恋关系研究——以经济型酒店为例

随着人们消费态度的不断改变,消费者与品牌的关系日益重要,关系营销理论也不断发展,越来越多的营销学者开始关注品牌依恋新视角。探究影响高校学生对经济型酒店品牌依恋的影响因素,有助于经济型酒店完善自我品牌战略,以更有效地吸引经济型酒店的忠诚客户。本文以在校大学生为研究对象,通过227份问卷对经济型酒店的品牌依恋影响因素进行分析。研究发现大学生对经济型酒店品牌信任与大学生自我概念与品牌个性一致性均对品牌依恋的建立有显著影响。而大学生对经济型酒店品牌的介入度并没有在影响品牌依恋的品牌信任和自我概念与品牌个性一致性两个维度中起调节作用。所以经济型酒店品牌应该在树立与消费者个性相一致的品牌个性和建立消费者对品牌的信任两个层面制定营销战略,从而吸引更多对经济型酒店品牌的忠诚消费者。     

论代言人推荐式广告如何影响消费者态度

在日常生活中,常看到许多广告运用具有专家、真实产品的使用团体,或用明星为产品代言,这种利用代言人的推荐式广告手法,是期望能对消费者提供专家性、比较性或象征性,来达到品牌知名度提升,使产品表现出差异化形象,促使消费者的人格特质与品牌形象间产生连结效果,甚至产生行为规范性的影响,于是有越来越多的学者和市场营销人员将注意力放在广告中使用的代言人(Spokesperson)或推荐人(Endorser)上,并为其提出理论基础。     

Involvement and opinion leadership in tourism

Nature-based tourism, science tourism, and ecotourism are some of the emerging and growing trends in special-interest tourism. This study utilized a southeastern sample of the United States who had an interest in travel and the environment. A modified Dillman total design method survey was used to collect the data. The study demonstrated that widely used concepts of marketing are applicable for nature-based tourism. Results indicate that highly involved nature-oriented travelers tend to be more receptive to information concerning the travel product or destination and spread that information willingly. Findings of this study suggest that opinion leaders take more trips and use slightly more information sources.